Some of the poorest and most vulnerable in society are already being badly hurt and overlooked by cuts to local government, the social justice think tank the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has warned.
But a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests that while the current sustained round of spending cuts are “almost without historical or international precedent”, they are still less than a tenth of what is planned by the end of this parliament and the beginning of the next one in 2016.
Ninety four per cent of the cuts have yet to take place, says the IFS.
Ahead of the Chancellor’s Budget next month, the IFS launched its own “Green Budget”, in which it conceded “the case for a short term fiscal stimulus to boost the economy is stronger than it was a year ago because growth has been so far below projections”.
The Bank of England this week was preparing to launch a new round of quantitative easing.
The IFS said the autumn statement had made clear that two more years of austerity than originally intended will be needed, so its own projections should not be seen as too controversial. “Since the financial crisis and recession began, a £114 billion hole [£23 billion more than the Office for Budget Responsibility estimated last March] has become apparent”, the IFS said.
Most of the tax increases aimed at overhauling that shortfall have been put in place already but only 6 per cent of the planned cuts to public services have taken effect.
“How deliverable they will prove to be remains to be seen”, said the IFS.
It also expected the economy to expand by just 0.3 per cent this year expanding annually by 1.6 per cent annually in the years to 2016.
Earlier this week the Public Accounts Committee delivered a coruscating report on how Whitehall and the Treasury keeps it books, falling short of normal industry and accountancy standards. It could not understand how it failed to properly take into account lost tax revenue or publicly-owned assets.
Meanwhile the most deprived local authorities in this country have been hardest hit by the government’s public spending cuts and the recession, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported.
Its report, Serving Deprived Communities in a Recession, assessed 25 English local authorities to measure their responses to the severe contraction in grant income in the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review.
Analysis of the patterns of spending cuts show greater cuts (in both proportionate and absolute terms) in the most deprived authorities, compared with the most affluent. Only half the sample had adopted “protecting the needs of the most vulnerable client or communities” as a principle guiding budgetary decision-making and just two suggested that “protecting deprived neighbourhoods” was a priority.
The author of the report for the JRF, Glen Bramley, said cuts made by local government in future should be monitored to ensure the poorest and most vulnerable are not forgotten.
“This report highlights that the poorest people in society are being affected more than anyone by local government cuts. Despite some services used by all groups being significantly reduced, the impact of service provision cuts will fall more heavily on disadvantaged people who rely on public services. Unlike the more well-off, they are less able to supplement the loss of public services (such as childcare, libraries and youth clubs) with private provision.”
Julia Unwin, chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said: “This report finds that vulnerable people are being hit with the double impact of faster cuts, and lack of protection. While we accept that local authorities need to make spending cuts, it is essential that people in communities that are already struggling do not suffer more than others.
